<p>Or people take their retirement $$ and move to Mexico!</p>
<p>Serendipity is great. A "quote of the day" feature just popped this one up:</p>
<p>Nothing will work unless you do. - Maya Angelou</p>
<p>"When Adam delved and Eve span, who was then a gentleman?' John Ball 1381</p>
<p>"Qu'ils mangent de la brioche" attributed to Marie Therese (1638-83)</p>
<p>"There are two ideas of government. There are those who believe that if you just legislate to make the well-to-do prosperous, that their prosperity will leak through on those below. The Democratic idea has been that if you legislate to make the masses prosperous their prosperity will find its way up and through every class that rests upon it" William Jennings Byran 1896 </p>
<p>Elizabeth Warren-2006</p>
<p>"Middle-class families have been threatened on every front. Rocked by rising prices for essentials as mens wages remained flat, both Dad and Mom have entered the workforcea strategy that has left them working harder just to try to break even. Even with two paychecks, family finances are stretched so tightly that a very small misstep can leave them in crisis. As tough as life has become for married couples, single-parent families face even more financial obstacles in trying to carve out middle-class lives on a single paycheck. And at the same time that families are facing higher costs and increased risks, the old financial rules of credit have been rewritten by powerful corporate interests that see middle-class families as the spoils of political influence.... </p>
<p>Why are so many moms in the workforce? Surely, some are lured by a great job, but millions more need a paycheck, plain and simple.</p>
<p>It would be convenient to blame the families and say that it is their lust for stuff that has gotten them into this mess. Indeed, sociologist Robert Frank claims that this countrys newfound Luxury Fever forces middle-class families to finance their consumption increases largely by reduced savings and increased debt. Others echo the theme. A book titled Affluenza (by John De Graaf, David Wann, and Thomas H. Naylor) sums it up: The dogged pursuit for more accounts for Americans overload, debt, anxiety, and waste. If Americans are out of money, it must be because they are over-consumingbuying junk they dont really need.</p>
<p>Blaming the family supposes that we believe that families spend their money on things they dont really need. Over-consumption is not about medical care or basic housing; it is, in the words of Juliet Schor, about designer clothes, a microwave, restaurant meals, home and automobile air conditioning, and, of course, Michael Jordans ubiquitous athletic shoes, about which children and adults both display near-obsession. And it isnt about buying a few goodies with extra income; it is about going deep into debt to finance consumer purchases that sensible people could do without.</p>
<p>But is this argument true? If families really are blowing their paychecks on designer clothes and restaurant meals, then the household expenditure data should show them spending more on these frivolous items than ever before. But the numbers dont back up the claim.</p>
<p>A quick summary of the data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics Consumer Expenditure Survey paints a very different picture of family spending. Consider what a family of four spends on clothing. Designer toddler outfits and $200 sneakers are favorite media targets, but when it is all added up, including the Tommy Hilfiger sweatshirts and Ray-Ban sunglasses, the average family of four today spends 33 percent less on clothing than a similar family did in the early 1970s. Overseas manufacturing and discount shopping mean that todays family is spending almost $1,200 a year less than their parents spent to dress themselves.</p>
<p>What about food? Surely, families are eating out more and buying shopping carts full of designer water and exotic fruit? In fact, todays family of four actually spends 23 percent less on food (at-home and restaurant eating combined) than its counterpart of a generation ago. The slimmed-down profit margins in discount supermarkets have combined with new efficiencies in farming to cut more costs for the American family.</p>
<p>Appliances tell the same picture. There is a lot of complaining about microwave ovens and espresso machines: Affluenza rails against appliances that were deemed luxuries as recently as 1970, but are now found in well over half of U.S. homes, and thought of by a majority of Americans as necessities: dishwashers, clothes dryers, central heating and air conditioning, color and cable TV. But manufacturing costs are down, and durability is up. Todays families are spending 51 percent less on major appliances than their predecessors a generation ago.</p>
<p>This is not to say that middle-class families never fritter away money. A generation ago, big-screen televisions were a novelty reserved for the very rich, no one had cable, and DVD and TiVo were meaningless strings of letters. So how much more do families spend on home entertainment, premium channels included? They spend 23 percent morea whopping extra $180 annually. Computers add another $300 to the annual family budget. But even that increase looks a little different in the context of other spending. The extra money spent on cable, electronics, and computers is more than offset by families savings on major appliances and household furnishings alone.</p>
<p>The same offsetting phenomena appear in other areas as well. The average family spends more on airline travel than it did a generation ago, but less on dry cleaning; more on telephone services, but less on tobacco; more on pets, but less on carpets. When we add it all up, increases in one category are offset by decreases in another.</p>
<p>So where did their money go? It went to the basics. The real increases in family spending are for the items that make a family middle class and keep them safe (housing, health insurance), that educate their children (pre-school and college), and that let them earn a living (transportation, childcare, and taxes)."</p>
<p>Atana, my head hurts. What is your point? To clarify, mine was, "The story is bogus. There is no reason that recent economic changes in the Puget Sound area would lead to UW students lining up at a food bank. I think a reporter went looking for a sensational story and found it. Those students would not need free food if they had spent their summer working instead of standing in line. I suspect it's more about a sense of entitlement and willingness to beg instead of doing something unpleasant." Your turn.</p>
<p>The point is the reporter who filed the story was looking for a sound bite and ignoring deeper issues. So we'd be in agreement on that point. </p>
<p>The other point is although some of us did have the fortune to make it by the sweat of our brow, or whatever sweaty part we used, those methods are rapidly becoming irrelevant because of a basic changes in the nature of our economy. </p>
<p>And as Warren notes the middle classes no longer have the reserve savings needed for emergencies, education and etc and so it's improbable their brethren in the lower classes have such resources...</p>
<p>That was the reason for including the Elizabeth Warren essay, the people she writes about worked as hard or harder than their parents but have been nonetheless subjected to a decline in living standards. And that does include their progeny, the students of today. Yes, students need supplemental work, but because the costs of their education have largely been transferred to the family, it would be a stupid move to overemphasize the part time job. (The manner in which it has been transfered to the family was a direct result of the move away from grant based higher education funding. When the loan model and privatization became the norm it was effectively dumping the burden on the family. And increasing the shift to the debt based economy which has largely been the cause of the decline of the middle classes. Whatever golf course the CEO's have gotten from it all, the social consequences have been very detrimental) </p>
<p>Because many of these students have been compelled to take out loans for their education, and the costs of college have risen so high; the old part time job paradigm cannot be as relevant as it once was. Literally most cannot make enough in such jobs to really change the situation. And should they actually make more money; because of the way in which FAFSA is structured it's not to their advantage insofar as paying for college goes. Once the income goes up, it's goodbye to what little percentage of grant aid which does remain. </p>
<p>And if they fail at college, these debts will not disappear or be dealt with within the standard consumer protections for debt. And as such to fail because of an overemphasis on 'do you want fries with that' could be profoundly stupid decision given the potential consequences. (For example I've had students who had difficulties staying awake during classes and that wasn't because of all night booze offs. Some were working all night and trying to attend classes in the day, and in some cases raise kids. I have tried to work around these problems but institutionally many of these postmodern Horatio 'Algerists' do flunk because of their crushing obligations) </p>
<p>The core problem is the obscene costs of higher education have long outrun incomes, and the manner in which our society has chosen to provide higher education aggravates the situation.
Students are caught in one perdition of a bind, although outside academia the problem has not been given the press it deserves. </p>
<p>Higher education is a very different paradigm than it was in the 70's and earlier, and as such what worked then is almost irrelevant now. And what failed then, bears a much heavier toll now. </p>
<p>As far as the students in the article needing free food perhaps it is from a sense of entitlement. But the manner of jobs alluded to in this thread, pay so poorly in our inflation wracked economy, that reliance on something of this nature for economic survival is a very tenuous situation. If some of these students are indeed working these jobs as their primary economic resource, they might need the food bank. If they are working these jobs for extra school money, good. But that brings up the issue of economic resentments caused by such incursions, especially in a poor economy. </p>
<p>The situation in Puget sound, difficult to comment. But here in Colorado the economy is becoming very strained, and a potentially troublesome economic stratification is becoming very evident. Which is clearly going to affect college students. Many will be keeping these summer jobs, and foregoing school to help parents deal with fuel and foreclosures. Others simply will not be able to attend college, no matter how hard they work. </p>
<p>The reference to Brioche and John Ball, was my being somewhat sarcastic. College Confidential tends to attract fairly affluent posters and at times the attitudes about the poor or even lower working classes can be almost medieval, Rococo or gilded era. Way too much of the old saw that people just don't work hard enough. Perhaps they don't but there are places where working to one self to death will not matter. As far as the lower orders having a sense of 'entitlement', to some degree that's a very old form of social rebellion as is the criticism levied against them for such attitudes is an equally old response. (obviously youth always has a sense of entitlement, goldurned whippersnappers just don't know what it's like to walk 40 miles to school, after having fed the cows, chased off the rustlers and cooked breakfast for their sisters, brothers and pigs). </p>
<p>So the Ball and Marie Therese reference was not a jab at such esteemed people as yourself. But more a weariness over attitudes which are sometimes expressed on College Confidential without people being aware of how such words may be interpreted from the outside.</p>